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There's a version of fatherhood nobody talks about in the parenting books. The one where you get home at 7am, your son is already awake and wants to play, and every part of your body is telling you to sleep. That version. That's the one I know.
Working long shifts in industrial maintenance isn't glamorous. At Group 14 Technologies in Moses Lake we keep advanced materials production running around the clock. Equipment doesn't care what time it is. Systems go down when they go down and your job is to fix them regardless of whether you ate or slept or had plans.
For a long time I thought that schedule was working against me as a dad. Like I was always catching up, always one shift behind the life I wanted to be living.
Then I started paying attention to what my son was actually learning from watching me.
He sees me come home tired and still show up. He sees me keep my word when I said I'd be at his game even after a long week. He sees me fix things that are broken without making a big deal about it. He sees me read my Bible in the morning before the house wakes up because that's the only quiet time there is.
I'm not sure he understands any of that yet. He's little. But I think somewhere in there he's building a picture of what a man looks like. And I want that picture to be worth something.
Moses Lake gave me this life. Long shifts, short evenings, a kid growing up faster than I can track. I'd take it over anything else.
Jason David Newton Mechanical Technician | Moses Lake, Washington jasondavidnewton.com
